1. Field of This Invention
This invention relates to a process for preventing microbes from adhering to surfaces. This invention also relates to a process for detaching microbes from a surface.
2. Various Considerations
Some believe that bacteria attach or adhere to each other and to animal-cell or inert surfaces by means of a glycocalyx of fibers. Such feltlike glycocalyx are a mass of tangled fibers of polysaccharides, or branching sugar molecules, which extend from the bacterial surface. The adhesion mediated by the glycocalyx determines particular locations of bacteria in natural environments, hence such is a major deteriment in the initiation and progression of bacterial diseases. There is specificity of adherence with some species of bacteria.
Algae have polysaccharide fibers similar to those of bacteria.
One theory is that cells can be made to adhere very rapidly to any surface carrying a positive charge by means of coulombic attractions. Certain environmental enzymes, and enzymes from damaged or dead tissues, plus from inflammatory cells, inhibit cell adhesion either directly or indirectly. Some believe cell detachment is affected by physiologic and pathologic events in the cells in question, and in cells near to them. Various metabolic inhibitors apparently facilitate to a degree cell detachment from a surface. Chlorhexidine apparently facilitates cell detachment.
The distinct phenomenon of cell detachment is not simply the reverse of cell adhesion.